ISLAMABAD: Customs officials said that duties on mobile phones imported from foreign countries declared mandatory after implementation of the Finance Bill which bans duty-free importations of cellphones, ARY News reported on Wednesday.
A meeting of Senate’s Standing Committee on Information Technology was held under the chair of Rubina Khalid today. Few of the members have expressed reservations over putting restrictions on standing committees’ meetings with the session of the National Assembly.
A briefing was given by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials to the Senate body. The officials said that the intel agency has not possessed mandate of eradicating vulgarity on public places. They briefed that the agency has arrested 10 persons involved in data theft of passengers.
It was told that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) established a special system for passengers entitled Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) which allows passengers to register their mobile phones within 60 days.
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The FIA director told Senate that some of the officials have shared data with smugglers which led the agency to arrest three of its employees, whereas, five persons were nabbed in Lahore over their involvement in illegal mobile registration. The action was taken after receiving complaints of citizens over having issues in registration of their mobile phones as the database has already possessed same identification prior to their registration, the director added. He detailed that PTA has so far forwarded 15 complaints under the data theft cases to the intel agency.
To this, Senator Rubina Khalid said that the registration process seems a misery for users instead of becoming a facility. Senator Rehman Malik demanded Senate body to suspend the mobile phone registration system which increased fear of overseas Pakistanis.
While briefing the Senate’s committee, Customs officials said that duties have been imposed on imports of mobile phones after the implementation of the Finance Bill. They added that the consumers will have to register their cellphones within 60 days, otherwise, it will be blocked by concerned authorities.
